ANIMAL BLOGGING WITH DILL THE CAT

ENGAGE.  EXPLORE.  ENTERTAIN.  EDUCATE.  ENTHUSE.

Hello!  Thank you for visiting Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat! As a self-taught photographer and animal enthusiast, combining the two Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat highlights the work of S. Mason. Our first visitor was from India. Since then, from around the world, Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat, viewers have come. Welcome indeed!  Thank you for becoming part of the landscape of Animal Blogging with Dill The Cat.

                                             

 

Somalia, Russia, Canada, Japan, Venezuela, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Romania, United Arab Emirates, Latvia, Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom, India, Malaysia, Ireland, Ukraine, Philippines, Japan, Denmark, Columbia, Sweden, Turkey, Ghana, Panama, Netherlands, Jordan, Morocco, Brazil, China, Spain, Belgium, South Africa,

Pakistan, Poland, Italy, Georgia, South Korea, France, Germany, Russia, Germany, Canada, Romania, Finland, New Zealand, Israel, Belarus, Vietnam, Lithuania, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Croatia, Argentina, Mexico, Switzerland, Singapore, Moldova, Mongolia, Bahamas, Norway, Taiwan, Portugal, Czech Republic, Bangladesh,

Luxembourg, Estonia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Guyana, Peru, Bulgaria, Burundi, Iraq, Guernsey, Macau, Austria, Guatemala, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Fiji, Dominican Republic, Kenya,Greece, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Costa Rica, Angola, Qatar, Ecuador, Honduras, St. Lucia, Puerto Rico, Maldives, Aruba, Chile, Bulgaria, Algeria, Turks & Caicos Islands, El Salvador, Malta, Hungary, Jamaica, Egypt, Mauritius,

Aruba, Algeria, Barbados, Nepal, Cambodia, Cyprus, Pakistan, Iraq, Argentina, and Japan, Reunion, Ukraine, Bolivia, Czechia, Columbia, Serbia, and Lithuania, Armenia, Chad, and Moldova, Hong Kong,  Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan, Seychelles, Albania, Paraguay, Kenya, Turkmenistan, Belgium, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Slovakia, lran...      

                                                                                                                                         

       MEMBERSHIP CONNECTS PEOPLE TO THEIR PASSION

               Passion Through Membership

As lifelong members of Denver Zoo and members of Denver Museum of Nature and Science over 20 years we speak about these organizations from our encounters when we say the museum and zoo are not places to go but rather places to indulge in the experience.  

Memberships have a lot of perks, but it also connects people to their passions and that unto itself makes membership a different kind of home. 

May we suggest in some manner support non-profits whose passion is to enhance the quality of life of animals. 

Donations.  Volunteer. Membership. Worthy gifts.  

With a certificate of appreciation from Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, Connie, Matt, and Rachel also worked in a fluid team spirit to create a very thoughtful resource book of the Denver Zoo that is very much appreciated. The copyrighted covers are the actual footprints of a lion and an elephant trunk. "Thank you" is just the threshold of our gratitude.                                                                                                               

End Of Life And...

The decision to euthanize is really more of a reckoning that reality of circumstance makes the decisiveness outcome, hence 18 years after bringing Yoshi home, comes the breaking of the heart to return to the Denver Dumb Friends League. 

A person who has never loved an animal could never understand and to those who do, such a tenderized grief, silence is not a void of words inasmuch as silence becomes another kind of language.

We thank Denver Dumb Friends League’s staff members Waun and Adam for their respectful compassion. Returning home, in our email Waun sent us a beautiful memory, a memory nearly two decades old, pictures of Dill and Yoshi when they were residents of Denver Dumb Friends League, and we would like to share them with Dill’s audience.

Compassion, born so often from tragedy, softens the dark corners of death.  

                                                  A Promise Kept

When we went to Denver Dumb Friends League with the intentions of bringing one cat into our home we were told the person who surrendered Dill and Yoshi asked that they were adopted together. Without Mason and I looking at each other we both promised to give them a forever home. Dill passed away about a year before Yoshi. To the stranger who had Dill and Yoshi before us, that we will never meet, we kept that promise and if we could say anything to their past guardian it would be, both cats (indoor) had very safe, long and happy lives and to those who must surrender an animal we hope Dill and Yoshi's journey offer you some peace in your grief. 

Compassion, born so often from tragedy, softens the dark corners of death...and life.

                                

Membership connects people to their passions. Consider the gifting of membership.

 

THE ARK - On Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat

        ENGAGE. EXPLORE. ENTERTAIN. EDUCATE. ENTHUSE. 

         

                                               

            Zoo Lights!

Imagine a cloudless black velvet night filled with millions of holiday lights in every convincible color and size, background with music and entrainment, great food, and you have the holiday fantasia of Zoo Lights!  If you have never experienced Zoo Lights odds are if you go once, it will become a tradition.   

This picture Mason took was early on as he self-taught photography.

This picture of a lizard originally photographed in black and white using artistic expression Mason colored.

This snake's colors are not with an artistic expression. One can never assume what kind animals they will see at a zoo.    
              

    From Mason's photography Cheetahs In The Grass.

         

        

Fresh Trees, Mistletoes, Holly, and Poinsettias...Or Not

There are many reputable websites that list holiday plants that are poisonous to animals and though living trees unto themselves are not, given the likelihood they have been treated with pesticides and preservatives that gets into the tree pan that waters it, if digested, it can even be lethal, plus dry needles that fall from the tree can become pins to paws.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF DIAMOND STORE...

When we brought Luna into our home from the Denver Dumb Friends League, she was a solid black kitten and within a few months she began changing colors, growing a gray mane that traveled down her chest, to her belly.  We never heard of a black cat changing colors and reading about it we learned Luna was defined as a black smoke cat.  At best based on what we read black smoke cats are rare. Luna also has the distinctive trait of responding to her nicknames, Lulu, Little Girl, and Sugar Cookie. Then we went back to the different kind of diamond store.                                                                 

This is Chowder, who came into our home from the Denver Dumb Friends League too.  Chowder was a feral cat who lived in the backyard of a caring person who fed him but was unable to bond with him. The food giver was the only human contact Chowder had with people and as an adult cat we were told the odds were Chowder would never bond with us. He was litterbox trained and that was enough that we would give him a forever home.  Chowder enjoys looking outside but he has no interest whatsoever of going there. Chowder never became accustomed to closed doors, but he enjoys looking at videos made for cats on YouTube while laying on an electric blanket in the winter. Not seen in this picture Chowder is also a black smoke cat. His "smoke" is a grayish mane. 


                                                        

Consider the gifting of donating to a non-profit whose mission is to care for one's spirit animal.       

        Color glazing photography by Mason

            (for best viewing experience enlarge video)                               

               

              PABLO'S COFFEE

Just gorgeous.

In the color palette of it.

In the fantasy of it.

In the movement of it as it tells a story that wraps around to the side of the building…  Yes, a building.

Pablo’s Coffee on East Colfax gave a gifting of the building as a canvas to a pair of artists and they in turn gifted East Colfax and the city of Denver with a different form of oxygen, engaging beautiful art.    

So one day we were driving by Pablo’s Coffee and talked about how wonderful if a mural could be done on the building and when a day came that we saw two artists painting we had to stop and talk to them, two men, an American and an Australian.  I will never forget the Aussie’s face when Mason mentioned his favorite bird, a cassowary.  He told Mason that he was the only person he had met who knew about cassowaries.  

We talked about their art, their creative process, being gifted with a canvas, and the conversation was just so wonderful, and we were so excited we forgot to ask their names. We mentioned Dill and how we wanted to post their finished piece on her blog. So, if the artists are reading this, please drop us a comment so we can attach your names to your creation. 

When the project was completed and we returned to take pictures, customers told us how much they too appreciated the art.  One couple told us when they drove by their son was in awe of the building’s art. The memories of other customers’ smiles and words are ours but truly those memories belonged to Pablo’s Coffee and the artists.

On Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat, we are always grateful to business owners who allow their establishments to be used in such a giving expression to artists, so thank you Pablo’s Coffee and the artists. If it was up to Mason and me, cities would provide an incentive to businesses and artists when they collaborate, and the results are beauty breathes in the city. 

     

         
                    

                   Don't Forget

With the holidays, underneath the music and laughter, sometimes comes with the quiet pain of reminiscence.  If you know of someone who has lost an animal, consider the gift of time by volunteering at an animal shelter in the guardian and their animal's names.

THE ARK KEEPERS – On Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat

ENGAGE.  EXPLORE.  ENTERTAIN.  EDUCATE.  ENTHUSE.

Organizations whose mission is to enhance the quality of life for the kingdom of animals extends to saving lives, that expands to saving species are truly modern day arks and so it is their humans are The Ark Keepers. An Ark Keeper at Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, T, (we didn't ask if we could use his name) told us, "Sometimes we become their parents."

                                

                                                                            

Our National Mammal

Majestic. Strong. Beautiful. Enduring.

            DENVER ZOO CHANGED ITS NAME

Just as my parents always took me to Denver Zoo when I was a kid from one generation to the next, I took Mason when he was a kid. Upon hearing the news that Denver Zoo changed its name Mason and I reflected on we remembered when…

When I was a kid on the front page of the Rocky Mountain Newspaper, I recall a picture (in black and white) of Denver Zoo’s medical staff surrounding the examination table looking down at an adult polar bear prepped for surgery and just as the massive bear, groggy from anesthesia raised its head, inches away from the staff their eyes reasonably so wide, the photographer took the picture right before the ice bear laid its head down asleep.  

Back then Denver Zoo was free, and the entrance gate was located near the tennis ball courtyard. When Denver Zoo announced it would charge for entry the public resentment was LOUD. Denver Zoo had to educate the public about the cost to run the zoo and the money was also needed to fulfill visions of its future and that is why and when free days were created.

I took Mason to the zoo long before he could see over the ticket counter.  On one visit an employee suggested we should purchase a membership given how often we came and that was the first day we became formal members of Denver Zoo.

And I say formal members because in spirit decades before the concept of membership existed, we were always from one generation to the next, Denver Zoo supporters. 

I have no way of knowing but I believe Mason is a member of a distinctive group, a person who for most of their life, has been a Denver Zoo member.

Where the tigers are now, once there were white wolves. What is now Predator Ridge for lions, was once home for the zebras. Generations ago where pony rides for kids was located when I was a kid, became the location for elephant rides when Mason was a kid and today it is known as Down Under, the home for the zoo's Australian animals. Where Primate Panorama is located was once a children's zoo. And ohhhh...it was such a beautiful experience to walk among the free roaming peacocks of the zoo.  Mason has a picture of a white peacock, who years ago, resided at Denver Zoo. Over the years Denver Zoo's landscape we can speak of what was, the present, and read articles of its future. 

One day zoo employees were driving around warning visitors to take shelter in the nearest building as news reports came in about a possible tornado.  Mason and I were closest to Tropical Discovery, the reptile house. 

Hmmm...to be in a reptile house during a tornado.

We can laugh about it now because we did not go in, the tornado never came, and we made it home safely.

One day Mason received a phone call from Denver Zoo and after the call ended, we just sat in silent awe believing the unbelievable.  Mason plus one, me, were invited to have a private tour of two animals of the zoo, the okapis from Zaire and the hippopotamus from Africa. 

It was a beautiful, profoundly so, never to forget experience. And so profound, it was humbling to witness endangered animals so close and be educated from zookeepers what their duties entailed. When we returned home and spoke about our experience, we realized Denver Zoo was and had always been a modern day ark and as such zookeepers were/are modern day ark keepers. 

Denver Zoo, fluid as water, forever evolving, never coming to a conclusion for its impact expands globally. 

Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance new name defines the word visionaries for it speaks of its history and future bonded by its present. 

     Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance  

It’s more than a new name it is an earned name.

The Ark Animal Photography by Mason is my back-up blog and primarying I will continue to post on Dill, my home blog. The Ark Animal Photography by Mason

 

                 BEAUTIFUL STELLA 

There is history between Stella, a jaguar who once resided at Denver Zoo and Mason's photography. Back then Mason simply enjoyed taking pictures of animals and as a lifelong member of Denver Zoo Conservation Allegiance it was, and still is, his perfect harmony.

The picture taken of Stella is one of many that encouraged and inspired Mason to become self-taught in photography with animals as his principal subjects that eventually became the path to creating Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat.

When Mason and I talked about creating a website to highlight his photography with his love of animals, not knowing what we were doing, neither of us had no idea where this journey was headed and yet at the same time, we were never lost. 

The first comment Dill received came from India and over the years so many countries came to Dill we looked at maps to see where viewers were located. To the viewers of Dill you are so much more; each of you are a part of the landscape of Mason's journey and humbly, we say, "Thank you."💜

                                        

          

STOCKING STUFFERS FOR ANIMALS

Dollar plus stores have entire aisles devoted to pet products that would be great for stocking stuffers.  In addition, other items in their stores can also make thoughtful gifts such as, picture frames, canisters for dry pet food or catnip, and balls to play with. A welcome mat under food dishes and we found laser pens for chasing spots, and even shopping bags for ferrets and cats. Online there are healthy pet treats recipes, and for the cold treats add an ice tray.  A few dollars can fill a stocking and of course, they have stockings too.

                                    

Beautiful Words

Some words are so beautiful they give us a reason to pause, reflect, and exhale. Such words speak to the stories of our lives. For us there are four special words that are beautiful together when driving miles of snow-covered tree-lined streets and the title of my photography--On Our Way Home.                                                                                      
           

  DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE

As members of Denver Museum of Nature and Science we can attest that the museum transcends into a virtual library. There isn't another place where so many things that are truly beyond the scope of expectations of ever witnessing in a lifetime are located in one place. Walking through this virtual library, it really isn't a place one visits but rather one experience.                                           

 

     ANIMALS OF THE RAINFOREST 

Membership Connects People To Their Passions

One of the many member perks we enjoy about Denver Museum of Nature and Science is having the opportunity to view special exhibits before the public viewing and experiencing ANIMAL OF THE RAINFOREST that included live animals presented in a virtual forest environment was fascinating and educational.

Below are a few of the pictures Mason took at the Denver Museum Of Nature And Science - Animals Of The Rainforest. The following quote sets the tone at the start of the experience, speaks to why this exhibit is so important.

"At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon Rainforest.  Now I realize I am fighting for Humanity." Charles Mendes 

                                       

                 
        A Zoo Has Four Kinds Of Animals                           
When visiting a zoo, a modern day ark, a person will see four kinds of animals.

1) There will be animals commonly known but they will likely have characteristics that are surprising, such as vultures can be white, zebras can have brown fur, and lions can have spots.

2) There will be animals one have seen in the media but never in person.

3) There will be animals a person never knew existed. 

4) The fourth kind of animal is often mistaken for an animal a person knows, thus believing it is one kind of animal when it is something very different and this is important because in order to save animals, we need to be able to identify them.  

                                                            

A pig, a porcupine, a capybara. This animal has been called many names, but it is a chacoan peccary, a new member of four, now home at Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance.

                                                                                              

            TWO RIVERS, ONE OCEAN

No one can speak of the totality of their own history and as such every generation builds upon the last and in doing so even before we are born the foundation of our footsteps, yet to be taken, have already been pathed.  But ever constant there isn’t a passage in history that humans can speak of that does not include animals. Periodically on Animal Blogging With Dill The Cat, like two rivers flowing into the ocean, we will note our collective history. 

            Purina's Purple Leash Project.

             DILL'S BOOK REVIEWS     

               ENTHUSE.ENGAGE.EDUCATE.ENTERTAIN.EXPLORE.

BOOKS BOOKMARK OUR LIVES

People who love books can relate books to a place and time in their lives giving books the special irony that books become bookmarks of our lives. On Dill, again, we are going to review books about animals and the environment as it pertains to the kingdom of animals. Because we will only recommend books that we are willing to purchase, we will not accept free books. Books that we do not keep after reviewing will be given to a Free Library.  As an author or a reader, if you believe as we do, a room is not empty if there is a book in it, if you have a book you would like to recommend, please drop us a comment. 📚            by Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant    You are (Not) Small is cute enough to make a person think of this book in July for a Christmas gift. It’s about the perceptions we have of others. While reading You Are (Not) Small it is easy to slip into the characters’ voices because it’s so engaging. The illustrations, that are adorable, marry the words. If the cover makes you smile, the contents will make you laugh.📚                                                                                   LIVING JEWELS by Poul Beckmann Imagine beetles, one percent of an inch up to four inches in size then imagine viewing images of their intricate patterns, bold and beautiful colors enlarged to the size of a man's hands. Poul Beckman's book, such a beautiful book, LIVING JEWELS is aptly named as it expresses through images all that we see is not all that exist.  LIVING JEWELS is a celebration for our eyes and as in all things beautiful it is befitting for people of all ages.  https://www.living-jewels.com/ From Mason's photography collection, Different Kind Of Calendar HIGHLIGHTS FROM MASON'S PHOTOGRAPHY